Downbeat Tony Mowbray admits Celtic are effectively out of Europa Cup

Published on Tuesday 1 December 2009 21:34

TONY Mowbray has effectively written off Celtic's prospects of reaching the knockout stage of the Europa League ahead of tonight's penultimate Group C fixture against Hapoel Tel-Aviv at Parkhead.

• Tony Mowbray admits Celtic have little chance of qualifying for the next round of the Europa League

Any Celtic supporters seeking a rallying call from their club's manager before a match they must win would be disappointed as an especially downbeat Mowbray all but conceded elimination is inevitable for his team.

With Celtic requiring maximum points from their two remaining fixtures, against Hapoel tonight and Rapid Vienna in Austria on 17 December, in conjunction with Hamburg losing both of their games, at home to Rapid this evening and then away to Hapoel, no-one will argue with the obvious soundness of Mowbray's assessment of the situation. It is not, however, about to spark a late surge in ticket sales for the appearance of the Israeli side at Celtic Park.

"We need Hamburg to lose two games and it's highly unlikely they will do that as they are a high-class team," said Mowbray. "We will just try and win our games. The focus is to win the last two games for the bigger picture, for our season, to keep the confidence high, win football matches and see where the season takes us."

Celtic's failure to reach the group stage of the Champions League has been followed by the collection of just two points from their first four games in the Europa League, part of a miserable European campaign by Scottish clubs this season. Just five victories have been recorded from 25 matches played by Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Motherwell, Aberdeen and Falkirk, inflicting significant damage on Scotland's Uefa co- efficient ranking.

But although Celtic remain as Scotland's only potential participants in European competition beyond the turn of the year, Mowbray is not concerning himself with the wider ramifications of pulling off the unlikely comeback needed to secure a place in the last 32 of the Europa League. "I'm not mindful of that," added Mowbray. "I'm just trying to win the game for ourselves, our season, our supporters and we'll see how we go. I don't know how many tickets we've sold for this one. But it works both ways. The team have to get the crowd involved and the team have to play their part."

Mowbray last night received confirmation from Uefa that Artur Boruc can be re-registered in his European squad. The goalkeeper was withdrawn last month in order to allow him to undergo knee surgery. Uefa allowed Celtic to add Dominic Cervi, their American third-choice keeper, to their squad as cover for Boruc's replacement and Polish counterpart, Lukasz Zaluska.

Boruc is now back in full training and fit enough to be involved tonight now that Celtic have received the necessary clearance. "We've asked to bring him back in and it's as simple as yes or no," Mowbray had said earlier. "It's the same as when we asked to take him out and put Dominic Cervi in. Artur is good and doing fine in training. Of course, I'm keen to get him back. Zaluska has done well, but I expected that. That's why we signed him. Artur was playing well before he got injured. They both can do the job."

Mowbray has no fresh injury problems to contend with as he looks to at least create some winning momentum following Saturday's 3-1 SPL success against St Mirren which was only Celtic's third win in their last 11 games.

"When you win, everything's great, when you lose, you're hopeless, so the secret will be to try and win," said Mowbray.